For a long time the word I used was fine. Not well — I was never consistently well — but fine. The kind of fine that gets you through appointments where the doctor says your bloods look good and you nod and go home. The framework I eventually found — not in a clinic but in research papers — was low-grade inflammation. Chronic, systemic, subclinical. Below the threshold that conventional medicine calls concerning. Running quietly enough to be easy to miss. Pervasive enough to affect almost every system in the body.

Heartbreak isn’t just a feeling — it can be a full-body stress event that impacts your heart, immune system, sleep, digestion, and even cognition. This post breaks down the neuroscience and physiology behind why emotional pain hurts physically, and what actually supports recovery in the weeks and months after a major loss.